It was an interesting morning

Me with Jason Mewes (Jay from Jay and Silent Bob)

Here's to 2009

I'm laying in bed sick, feeling like my head might explode at any given moment which would provide a much needed release of pressure. So what's a good way to pass the time when waiting for your head to blow up?....Write a blog!

It's a new year (and what a way to start it out huh) in case you hadn't noticed. I'm hoping 2009 is 100% better than 2008....I mean even the bad things that have happened thus far don't compare. Here's a little recap of my previous year...both good and bad.

Bad things in 08':
-Starting it out at a job I absolutely positively hate
-Having graduated but not having had a ceremony
-a TON of people I know getting hitched (not really bad...just kinda makes me sad to realize I'm really growing up)
-Seeing my uncle go through so much pain before passing and seeing how it effected my parents & grandma
-My uncle actually passing
-Realizing just how selfish and self-centered some people really are and to what extent they'll go to just to get something for themselves
-Our apartment burning down and thinking we'd lost EVERYTHING
-Living with my parents for going on 4 months (hey it's a place to live...just saying it's not too fun when you're 24)

Good things in 08':
-Getting a job with a company that I absolutely LOVE and hope I never have to leave
-Recieving my diploma and actually having a graduation (even if it was 5 months after the fact...stupid IUPUI)
-Knowing that my uncle is finally not in pain
-Not actually losing ALL of our stuff from the apartment...we recovered all of the important things
-Buying my own house....(still under construction but soon to be finished)
-Having a place to stay after the fire and while the house is under construction
-My dad doing all of our construction for free!

In retrospect a lot of stuff has happened and although the bad things were really bad, they could have been worse. Plus the good stuff really was great. Soon we'll be in a house of our own, I'll be working at a place I love (even if I'm not in love with the job itself) and I'll have more time to enjoy life (and get a puppy).

Plus, I've started out the new year spending about $1100 in a matter of about 2 hours (dishwasher, couch, loveseat) and spending money is always fun....unless it's on bills. So here's to 2009!!!

the sunday post-thanksgiving wrap up

Good lord it's been an insane 7 or 8 days. I'm pretty sure I've done more in that little amount of time than I have in the last 6 months. As I'm partial to doing bulleted updates...let's go with that.

-Last Saturday....we all went out for Tiffy's 24th bday. I'm happy to report that it was a lot less messy than mine was. I drove up to Broad Ripple and finally met all of her friends from her work life. Everyone was incredibly nice and funny. Plus they welcomed me into their adorable apartment with alcohol...how could I not like them. So we kept hearing that Wes might show up. For those of you not in the know here is the story on Wes. Tiffy and I have a love/hate relationship with him. We basically love him, but he makes us want to beat the crap outta him. We all went to high school together and got pretty close senior year and freshman year of high school. He's a great guy and hilarious. He and I were even looking into moving in together a few years ago (which would have been an insanely better idea than what I ended up doing instead). The thing is, in recent years it's been harder and harder to actually hang out with Wes. Every time we've made plans something has happened. So we've kind of gotten to the point where whenever he said 'hey let's get together' we just kind of blew it off. During the week before Tiffy's bday he texted her several times saying he was coming out with us...so naturally we blew it off, but were secretly excited. To sum up all of that...HE ACTUALLY SHOWED UP!!! I ended up walking outside just in time to see him drive by so I could flag him down. After he came in and we saw his OJ gloves we all piled into Alison and Adam's cars and headed to the Mine Shaft in Broad Ripple. Honestly, the rest of the night was just kind of a blur of fun.

Here we are as the night started...almost sober.

This is about one drink in...Wes just normally acts like this.

And well we have no excuse (including alcohol) for this one.

We drank, we danced...Mark did the worm across the stage.
Notice the air he's getting over there in the mirror.

Although most of it just looked like he was a fish flopping around on land.

-Tuesday we get to see Wes...AGAIN!! It's insane! Tiffy, Wes and I all had a Starbucks date. We actually ended up staying at Starbucks in Broad Ripple for about 4 or 5 hours...and another hour and a half at the Subway across the street. The reason for this night was bittersweet. Our little boy has decided to become a man and go into the Air Force. Not saying I'm really that happy about it, but I know it's what he wants and has wanted for at least a few years now. He leaves for basic training this Tuesday and I just hope that everything turns out the way that he wants it to. As much as it scares me for him to do something like this, I know that it will help him in his engineering career. I mean he really wants that...afterall he did have a 5 minute conversation with me about asphalt...who does that?! Sadness aside, we did have an absolute blast. I honestly don't think I've laughed that hard in years. The thing I love most about the two of them is I can talk about absolutely ANYTHING and while I may be laughed at I know that I can get their take on it and not truely be judged no matter what it is. Hopefully more times like this will be coming up...until then....

Here's the usual pic of Wes with a random piece of fruit (there's an apple in his mouth). At least this time it was in an appropriate place...and not a banana in the middle of a classroom.

Then there's an apple with a gang sign...

Here's Tiffy and Wes....he's so happy because he's hit his head on the ledge behind him about 12 times already...she's wondering about the brain damage.

Here's us after I've snorted loudly several times and danced badly...I'm pretty sure they wanted to kick us out.

And a pic of all three of us (taken by some really nice people that were walking by)...too bad you can't see the OJ gloves.

-Thursday was of course...Thanksgiving. I don't know that any pics were taken of this but believe me it was hellacious. Every year Thanksgiving is at my parent's house and usually includes about 50 people depending on who comes. This means my mom goes crazy for at least a week beforehand cleaning the entire house. Since Mark and I are living here this year this also included us although not nearly to the extent that she cleaned. Our duty was moving all of our belongings from my parent's garage next door to our garage and cleaning the bathroom. Then there was all of the stuff the day of. The best thing to do is just to stay out of her way. As a whole everything went really well though. Everybody showed up and got a long with little to no yelling which is amazing (we're a LOUD family). It all just kind of seemed like a whirlwind this year, but it was fun. I spent at least half an hour/45 minutes holding my cousin's brand new baby which was a much needed break from all of the adults. The rest of the night was basically just laying around, looking at ads and trying to get some sleep for the next day.

-Friday...my favorite day of the year..and black Friday. After only getting about 3 or 4 hours of sleep I got up about 3:45 or 4 (which if you know me you know is not something that EVER happens) and drove out to Avon to go to Walmart. That was the worst idea in the world. I swear right here and now that I will never go to Walmart on Black Friday again. That was what I imagine hell to be like. I got a cart from outside that had one wheel that basically didn't move and when I got inside there were nothing but people. I mean I think every person on the west side of marion county was in that one walmart. So I fought all those people and got most of what I needed (2 vaccuums, some rubbermaid containers, baby clothes and well enough to spend $150) and got in line. That was another story. The lines were each about 25-30 people deep and most people had about 2 cart loads. I'm not exactly wonderful about waiting in line. It's not exactly impatience, it's more anxiety. So basically that was a fun experience. From walmart I went to Menards (another $150), then Target (another $150), then Meijer (only $20), then Bath and Body Works (another $80), then Kohl's (I'm ashamed to admit about $400), and finally Kroger (another $100). So in total for Black Friday I spent about $1,050...plus my dad went out to Menards, Lowe's and Home Depot to get a lot of stuff for me including 3 new doors for the house and some power tools. Honestly after my 9 hours of shopping I have no idea how our economy is so bad...it was CRAZY!! After my big shopping extravaganza and a nap we went and did my favorite yearly tradition next to fireworks. My mom, dad, Mark and I all went downtown to PF Chang's for dinner and then to see the circle be lit. I don't exactly know why but it's just always been my favorite night. I know it's usually freezing cold, but it's the best way to start off the holiday season. On top of all of the other fun events of the day and to end it all on a good note, we stopped by Long's donuts. If you've either never heard or never been there I highly recommend making plans to get some. They are THE BEST donuts I've ever had! We stopped in and got 3 long johns (long donuts with carmel or chocolate..carmel is the best..on top and a light vanilla cream inside) and a dozen applesauce....not many are left 2 days later.

It may look a little gross now, but I swear it's the best donut you'll ever eat.

-Finally, last night we got a group together and went bowling. I have to say it was one of the best times I've ever had bowling. After waiting about an hour we actually got to bowl and have fun. We bowled Brandon against Mark, girls against guys, and me/dustin/chris against mark/brandon. I'm pretty sure after about 4 games I had the overall lowest score, but it was ok. Afterwards we all we to Bdub's in Speedway and ate, drank and played poker. Overall it was a good night. Highlights of the night were Mark ordering 5 grilled cheese....and everyone trying to eat them, Chris falling/almost falling, the giant bottles of beer instead of pitchers, the horrible kareoke in the bar and a million jokes about the relationship between Chris and Brady Quinn.

Here's the giant bottle (next to a normal size water bottle).

So that was the entire shebang. I had fun and now I'm exhausted. I could use another long weekend of sleeping now. Christmas isn't that far off!

a lot can happen in a year

It's incredible how much can happen in a month let alone a year. Let's take a look at the major things that've happened to me in 2008 shall we.

January=bought a new car...my nice little blue cobalt. I also had my first full month of not having to worry about school in about 20 years.

April (at least I think that's when it was)=I voted for the first time like a big girl. I also threw a surprise 30th anniversary party for my parents with only the help of Mark. And to top it off, at the end of the month I started a new job at Entercom after being at the hell that was Amdoc for almost 3 years.

May=I was officially finished with IUPUI (even though I'd technically graduated in the previous December), had my grad ceremony and my 3D for Phi Mu, saying goodbye to all of my college days.

Then there were those few months where everything was pretty calm. I got used to my new position, handled not going to school better than I thought I was going to and even redecorated our living room. On that last one, I got a brand new couch (after having a hand-me-down from the 70's), new end tables (after using 2 from goodwill), reappholstered a recliner, bought a new rug and even painted.

Then we have September....

September=After about a year or two of knowing he had throat cancer and going through chemo, my uncle Larry went into the hospital...he never left. Early on in September he passed away. On September 11 (not a particularly great day to start with), we burried his ashes near my grandpa. I came home still upset and wanting nothing more than to take a nap. I fixed lunch for Mark (who was home sick) and me and laid down to watch a little TV. About two hours after getting home, we get a loud knock on our door. While that knock did save our lives, it also extremely changed them. Our entire apartment had caught on fire and at that point as far as we knew we had lost everything. We were finally allowed to go back up and thankfully salvaged everything but the big stuff. We had clothes, keep sakes and a few other small things. Our lives were then moved from a one bedroom apartment with just the two of us living there and back to my parent's house...just where we were before we got our apartment.

So....for the last (almost) two months we've been living at my parent's house. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents, but it's just not my own home. I'd gotten used to living on my own (or at least with just Mark) and having a place for all of my own things. However, it did start to get a little better. I mean when we first moved back we didn't even have a mattress until my aunt Marcia let us borrow her air mattress until we finally bought our own real mattress....to sleep on the floor.

There are things to be thankful for though. We have a roof over our head and food to eat. We got all of our keepsakes and clothes out of the apartment. We are both still employed after this crazy economic thing.

As of October 31, I also have something even bigger to be thankful for. I bought a house!!! So maybe it was a blessing in disguise. As much as it sucked to lose what I felt like was my home, it turned out to be a good thing in the end. Although, I would have liked it a lot better if we could have just not had the fire and moved at the end of our lease. But hey we always said we didn't want to move again when it was cold.

So this house that I bought....is kind of a wreck. See my dad has lived in the same house since his family moved to Indiana in the 60's. He's done a ton of work to it and really made it the best house in the neighborhood. In later years (I'm gonna say the 70's), my great aunt and uncle moved in next door to my parents/grandparents. On the other side of my parents, there was an older couple. Well in the last year, both of them passed away. My parents were worried about who would move in next door to them, because as the years have gone by we have had all kinds of crazies move into the neighborhood. So we made an offer on the house and after the fire it was FINALLY accepted.

Now I'm a proud homeowner. However, we are still going to be living with my parents...probably until Christmas. This place needs a decent amount of work. It had blood red shag carpeting, cabinets that had been wallpapered both inside and out, dark brown and green paneling thoughout and basically smelled so horrible you'd need a mask to come in and look around. So we're working on it...my dad more than anyone. We've got all the cabinets down, almost all the carpet up, and 1/2 the living room paneling off. I think that's pretty good for one weekend of work. I'm hoping to put up pictures when I get a chance.

Honestly, I guess when life gives you lemons you make lemonade...or if your apartment catches on fire you buy a house...whatever the case may be. I feel accomplished and I'm starting to finally feel like an actual adult....at 24. I'm proud that I've been able to keep a job pretty constantly since Senior year of high school (minus a few months for school). I'm proud that I know how to manage my money, haven't ran up any credit cards and am overall generally responsible enough to buy a house and be a big girl.

I guess I really don't like change, but when I make one several other pretty drastic ones seem to follow.

So that's where I am in life after 10 full months have passed by. Hopefully, the next 2 will be a positive leap into the next year.